The current state of education in America is a troubling picture. Reading proficiency scores have reached historic lows. Chronic absenteeism is on the rise—more than a quarter of K-12 students miss at least 10% of the school year. And the achievement gap in test scores between the highest and lowest performing students has widened.
More Americans use cannabis every day, or almost every day, than use alcohol on a daily basis. That's in large part because marijuana is a lot more accessible than it used to be. More than half of us live in a state where marijuana is recreationally legal. Nearly 8 in 10 live in a county with a marijuana dispensary.
They started off as ideological enemies. Mark Rosenberg pioneered the public health approach to preventing gun violence and opened a branch of the CDC to fund that research. Jay Dickey, the "NRA's point man in Congress", pushed a ban on CDC funding for gun violence research that lasted 20 years – and got Rosenberg fired. On this episode of Top of Mind, we tell the unlikely story of their friendship and what it can teach us about reducing gun violence in America.
It’s been about two years since the public got a taste of ChatGPT for the first time. Now, artificial intelligence has seeped into nearly every aspect of our lives. You can use AI to check your grammar or to generate content for social media. Students use it to write essays. AI can also generate artwork, music or audio in seconds. We’re relying more and more on generative AI tools like MidJourney, DALL-E, Claude, Perplexity, and Copilot—and the more we use it, the better it gets. But can AI really be creative? What does it even mean to be creative in the age of AI?
A 2024 Knight Foundation report found one in four college students think schools need to protect students by banning speech they may find offensive or biased, the largest share of students to answer that way since the survey first asked the question in 2016. 2024 also set a record for the number of attempts to disrupt or disinvite speaker, cancel performances, take down art exhibits and prevent the screening of films on US college campuses, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). What do these competing interests--to encourage student wellbeing and protect free speech on campus--mean for students and administrators trying to strike a balance?
In his parting prescription for the country, outgoing US Surgeon General, Doctor Vivek Murthy writes that he is worried about how exhausted and alone Americans are. Public health experts say loneliness has become an epidemic. Research shows social disconnection is about as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and more harmful than obesity.
Why is insulting someone’s intelligence such a potent put down? It’s more than saying someone lacks knowledge or book learning. It’s a statement of a person’s worth – of their potential to be successful. And for that, we can thank the IQ test. In this podcast episode, we explore how the IQ test was created and continues to shape our collective understanding of intelligence and disability. We hear from a mother struggling with the pros and cons of having her daughter with Down Syndrome routinely IQ tested at school. A school psychologist tackles common misconceptions about the nature of IQ testing. And we consider how the IQ test’s narrow definition of “intelligence” affects people with dyslexia and autism, which have historically been conflated with intellectual disability.
More than a quarter of Americans are estranged from at least one family member. Parent/child estrangement is the most common – especially between dads and their kids. There’s a lot about modern American life that has made family estrangement more common, and younger generations are more willing to talk about it on social media. But reconciliation happens more than you might think. On this episode of Top of Mind, we explore the reality of estrangement from both the parent and the child's perspective. And we hear what it takes to reconcile.
Can America guarantee free expression of religion in public as an officially secular, but culturally Christian nation? Expressing religious faith in public is both protected by law and socially acceptable. As a secular nation, the US has no official religion, but since two-thirds of American are Christian, most of the displays of religion in public places we see represent one faith. For example, Christmas is the only religious holiday observed by the that’s also a federal holiday when all government services and most private businesses are closed. And some argue that, because of our history and founding, America was intended to be a Christian nation.
The pandemic shook America’s trust, especially in vaccines. But it also taught us something about building trust in institutions. During the pandemic, Americans lost trust across the board. Today, trust in institutions like the media, the medical system, public schools, and all branches of government is at an all-time low.